patel travels: Juelz Santana Calls Drug Charges Against Him 'Preposterous'

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Juelz Santana Calls Drug Charges Against Him 'Preposterous'

'I got a Phantom and a Bentley outside of my studio; I'm not selling dime bags,' Dipset MC said about raid of his studio, on 'RapFix Live.'
By Rob Markman, with Sway Calloway

Juelz Santana
Photo: MTV News

When the Diplomats stopped by MTV News' "RapFix Live" back in January, the quartet arrived ... as a threesome. So when Sway asked about the absent Juelz Santana, Dipset leader Cam'ron had an explanation.

"He was on his way, but he had some type of allergic reaction on his face," he said, adding that Juelz had eaten something that didn't agree with him.

Cam was quick with a cover-up but as fans soon learned, it wasn't a rash, but a police raid on his Bergen County, New Jersey, studio that kept Santana from the Dipset crew's first appearance on our live stream. And when the Harlem rapper finally sat on the "RapFix" couch on Wednesday, he set the record straight about what happened that day.

"For those who don't know, my studio got raided, to make a long story short. I wasn't there, I wasn't present. One of my artists was there — shout-out to my boy Hynief — he was in the building," Santana said, referring to the friend/MC who was arrested during the raid. "They raided the studio and in the process of raiding the studio they allegedly said they found some firearms. Once again, I wasn't there, I wasn't present, it's a studio."

The raid turned up two handguns, drug paraphernalia and 17 Ziploc bags containing "a greenish brown vegetation consistent with the appearance of marijuana," according to police reports. Santana was later arrested on February 2 and charged with four counts of narcotic and weapon offenses in connection with the raid, which came as a result of a 10-month-long investigation of the studio by the Bergenfield Police Department.

"My name is the biggest so of course they are going to target me as the one to put a lot of the blame on," the Harlem MC said. "I had no clue on what's going on, I rent the studio out to people. That's like if I rent the studio out right now to somebody and they choose to bring whoever they want to bring in to the studio. They rented the studio out; I have no knowledge of what's going on until I come back and your [rental] time is finished."

Juelz also elaborated on his own charges with Sway. "They charged me with the firearms," he said. "They didn't charge me with trying to sell, but they put out a statement making it seem like I was selling weed out of my studio, which is preposterous. Dime bags? I got a phantom and a Bentley outside of my studio; I'm not selling dime bags. That sh-- is just crazy."

Despite his troubles, Santana seemed to be in good spirits and assured fans his lawyer was still sorting out the legalities.

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